by Gen Griffin
“It was kind of my fault that Casey died,” Addison confessed with a bitter smile. “I'd just gotten discharged from the Navy. I was bumming around town picking up a few bucks here and there for working odd jobs. Took a couple of odd college classes just because my Mom made me. I was twenty-one-years-old, but I was really just a stupid, immature kid.”
“And?”
“I was bored one morning so I loaded up a big cooler of beer and whatever liquor I had on hand into my old Jeep Cherokee and headed out into the trails to kill time until David, Cal and Gracie got out of school for the day. All my friends were always younger than me.” Addison took a deep breath. “I got the Jeep stuck mid-morning. Couldn't winch it back out. I texted David and Cal to come pull me out. They ran into Ian in the high school parking lot. He wanted to come with them and he was our friend. They let him tag along even though he'd already been drinking.”
“I can see where this story is going,” Sully mused.
“Can you?”
“Your buddies came to pull you out and y'all all got drunk and had yourselves a good ol' time until Ian got sloppy drunk. Casey Black was in the wrong place at the wrong time. You were the only one old enough to buy the alcohol so you knew you were going down.”
“I offered to take full responsibility for the alcohol but Ian was panicking because he didn't want to go to jail for underage drunk driving. He freaked. You know the rest.”
“Y'all hid the body and did your damnedest to forget about her until Kerry came back to town and reopened the case. That must have been a damn nightmare considering that you were the Game Warden and Ian was a deputy.”
“It was a disaster,” Addison admitted. “Especially once Kerry started trying to arrest David for every crime that was committed in the county.”
“That would have been messy.”
“Very messy.”
Sully took a deep breath. “You haven't killed anyone else, have you?”
“The closest I've come to killing anybody else involves seriously considering not saving Kerry the last two times he got kidnapped. I was also debating leaving him in the creek when you rolled your Jeep.”
“Why do you keep saving him?” Sully asked.
“Does it matter?”
“Yes.”
“I don't have a good answer. I guess it just feels wrong to intentionally let someone die when they're trying to do the right thing?” Addison put out his first cigarette and immediately lit another one. “We didn't have any opportunity to save Casey. She was dead the first time I ever laid eyes on her. She was crushed instantly by that truck. It's different with Kerry. I always seem to have ample opportunity to save his sorry ass.”
Sully nodded.
“You going to arrest me?”
“For what?” Sully asked. “Part of the reason Ian got out of serving jail time is that there isn't any evidence to prove he even killed Casey. I read Kerry's case file and then I did some research of my own into the case. One of the primary problems in getting a murder conviction is that Casey wasn't even a legal citizen of the United States. Her parents were illegal immigrants and they claimed she was born in the United States, but she wasn't born in a hospital. She didn't have a social security number. The one she was enrolled in school using was stolen. Her entire identity was stolen using the birth certificate of a baby who died of SIDS the same year she was born. It's an uphill battle to prove that your Casey Black ever existed. No one will ever be able to prove conclusively that she lived and that she was murdered without finding that body. Where is the body, by the way?”
“No idea.” Addison had been surprised by the news about Casey's identity. “I didn't bury her.”
Sully shook his head at Addison for a minute. “Who did?”
Addison smiled with his cigarette clamped in his teeth. “Ricky Breedlove. He died not too long after Casey. None of us know where he put her.”
“Convenient for y'all.”
“Ain't it though?”
Sully drummed his fingers against the porch railing. “Thank you,” he said finally.
“For being an accomplice to accidental murder?”
“For being honest when I asked you to be.” Sully leaned on the railing and stared out at the night sky. “I guess it's my turn to confess now. Assuming you want to trade secrets?”
“I already told you mine,” Addison figured Sully was going to confess to fixing traffic tickets for his buddies or some other incredibly minor sin.
Sully chewed on the filter of his cigarette. It had gone out on its own. “Tate's wife was legit crazy. I'm talking crazy like your Momma stealing Gracie's wedding dress out of the Walker's house, cutting it into shreds and then running off with her new boyfriend kind of crazy. Mel is Jane May's kind of cuckoo.”
“Okay. I'm listening.” Addison could tell that Sully was having a difficult time finding his words.
“A couple of years ago Melissa decided Tate wasn't paying enough attention to her. He was working as an arson investigator for an insurance company at the time. Mel devised herself a psycho little plan to make Tate notice her.”
“Oh boy.”
“She became an arsonist.” Sully stared down at his own hands.
“Oh hell.”
“It started with structure fires and progressed to revenge fires. She took to burning down the businesses of anyone who she felt had ever done her wrong. Some of those folks wound up locked inside their buildings while they burned.”
“You're telling me that Tate's ex-wife murdered people with fire?” Addison was more than a little stunned.
Sully nodded. “The sad thing is that we honestly didn't pay much attention to Melissa. She got away with it for God only knows how long before Tate caught on. We still don't know for sure how many buildings Mel burned down or how many people died because she was pissed off at Tate for ignoring her.”
“That's messy.”
“It gets worse.” Sully swallowed visibly and then stood up. He started pacing from one end of the porch to the other. “Tate finally realized he was married to the arsonist he was chasing. He went to confront her and she took the girls and barricaded herself inside of their house. She lit the house on fire with the kids and herself inside of it.”
“Shit. How did the kids survive?”
“We went in through a window and rescued the girls. Just me, Tate and Jo Beth. The fire department wasn't there yet. Tate and Joey got the kids out so it was just me and crazy-ass Mel screaming how she wanted us all dead...” He trailed off and turned to face Addison. “I picked her up, threw her over my shoulder, carried her to the basement door and threw her down the damn stairs. I locked the door from the outside and then ran like hell before the gas lines blew.”
Addison opened his mouth into a small 'o' of surprise. “Dude...”
“The house exploded and then burned the ground. Human remains were found during clean up. Not enough left of Melissa to get a positive DNA match but who else could it have been?” Sully continued his pacing. “The investigation that the Silver City Police Department had started on the arsons went cold. I lied my ass off and made sure it never got solved. Melissa was dead. No one else was going to die. Why should Tate have his career destroyed along with his personal life?” Sully cracked his knuckles. “Tate could recover from a divorce. He could recover from his wife dying in a suspicious fire. His name would have been mud in the firefighting community if it came out that his wife had killed multiple people by setting fires. Everyone would have thought he knew she was behind it. He didn't know. It would have destroyed him.”
“You fouled up the evidence?”
“I was the lead detective. It wasn't exactly hard to do.”
“No, I don't guess it would have been too hard.” Addison frowned at Sully. “I don't know why you're telling me all of this.”
“Melissa might not be dead.” Sully scowled out into the night and then turned back to Addison. “Six months after the fire, someone set my Chevy Camaro on fire in the par
king lot of the police station.”
“Holy shit.”
“She drew a heart on the hood with lighter fluid. Hearts drawn out of accelerant were Mel's signature that she left behind at all of the fires she started.”
“Was there any security footage?”
“It showed a small woman walking up to the car and setting it on fire. She was wearing a hoodie and jeans and she kept her face completely covered. We couldn't officially identify her.”
“You think it was Tate's wife?”
Sully nodded. “Tate was already in the process of moving to Possum Creek. Joey had talked him into applying for the fire chief's position and Callahan County was absolutely thrilled to hire him. Guys with Tate's qualifications don't usually apply to work in Podunk.”
Addison nodded to show that he understood and was listening. His mind was struggling a little bit to absorb the news that Sully wasn't the goody-goody Addison had taken him for.
“Tate offered me a job down here in the fire department. It was the best he could do. I hate fighting fires but I'd hate myself more if something happened to my brother or my nieces because I wasn't here to watch their backs.” Sully leveled his hazel eyes at Addison. “We knew that if Melissa was alive it would only be a matter of time before she tried to come after us. We're talking about a woman who killed her own former best friend because she told Tate that Mel was cheating on him. She killed an acquaintance of ours, Heather, because Heather had a crush on Tate.”
“You've been in Possum Creek for about a year now, haven't you?” Addison asked.
Sully nodded.
“You seen any sign of Tate's ex?” Addison crushed his cigarette out on the porch railing. “I know there haven't been any recent arson fires. I'd have heard about those, especially if she likes to draw hearts with fire. It would have been big news in this little bitty town.”
“One of the reasons we decided to move back to Possum Creek is that we knew it would be much harder for Melissa to hide here or blend into the local scenery. Silver City is just too big. Not all crimes are reported. County and city law enforcement don't always communicate with each other. Mel had already fallen through the cracks once up there. We couldn't risk it happening again.”
“Understandable.” Addison was deep in thought. “You didn't answer my question.”
“Up until recently everything had been real quiet. I was actually starting to wonder if the incident with my Camaro had been a fluke. Some of the details about the arsons Melissa committed had made the news. The heart signature was one of those details. I wondered if maybe I had an ex-girlfriend who was more pissed off at me than I realized and had decided to punk me by copycatting one of my more publicized cases.”
“That's a stretch.”
“It is. Call me Mr. Optimistic. I slept better at night when I was certain Melissa was dead.”
“You don't think she's dead.” It wasn't a question.
“A few weeks ago Sophie came running into Joey and Tate's room in the middle of the night. She was screaming that she'd seen Mommy peering through her bedroom window.”
“Do the girls know what happened to Melissa?” Addison asked.
“The girls know that their Mommy died in a fire. Sophie was hysterical. She said Mommy's face looked like a monster's.”
“Nightmare?”
“We're hoping so,” Sully said. “But think about it for a minute. Melissa was trapped in a fire. If she did survive, she would have had to be severely burned.”
Addison caught on fast. “Burn scars might make her look like a monster.”
“They very well could. Especially to a little kid.”
“Did Tate go outside and see if he could find her?”
“He went outside and he couldn't see any sign that anyone had been creeping around outside of the house. He called me and asked me to come over. I couldn't see anything suspicious either.”
“And yet we're still having this conversation,” Addison said.
“I can't stop thinking about that fish camp you and I were at last week. The one full of women's clothing.”
“Ah hell...”
“Melissa has designer tastes, no money, and a damn good reason to want to keep a low profile.”
“Why didn't you say something when we were out there?” Addison asked.
“I wasn't sure how much I could trust you,” Sully admitted.
Addison was a little startled by his admission. “You trust me now?”
“More than I did. I've had a real up close and personal look at how loyal you and your friends are to one another. I can respect that. To be honest, I'm a little bit jealous.”
“That loyalty is why Kerry hates me so much. He says it makes me a crooked cop.”
“Kerry wouldn't understand loyalty if friendship bit him in the butt,” Sully said. “Not to mention that he's not half as squeaky clean as he claims to be. He was working with Trish's ex-husband. I've seen the camera footage from the pawn shop when he sold that jewelry. Curtis wasn't in the store holding a gun to his head. He wasn't a hostage.”
“No, he wasn't.” Addison blinked at Sully and then decided to keep going with the honesty approach. “Cal found the original pawn ticket in Kerry's house after he shot Curtis. We know Kerry's not an innocent victim. He helped Curtis break into the house and rob Trish. He used his badge to get Curtis into the funeral home on the day of Grover's funeral. Kerry vouched for him.”
“Nice of y'all to mention all of this to me.”
“Everyone in town has heard Kerry accuse me of being a crooked cop. It's public knowledge that he thinks one of my best friends is a murderer and I'm covering for him. Would you have believed me if I had gone to you and told you that Kerry was so hellbent on punishing us for our mostly imaginary sins that he's willing to break the law himself?”
Sully thought that one over for a minute and then shrugged. “I'm not sure.”
Addison held up his hands and then shrugged. “I didn't trust you. You didn't trust me. Where does that leave us now?”
Sully took a deep breath. “You said the owner of that cabin had pictures of the woman who had been squatting in it. I need to see those pictures and I couldn't find them anywhere on your desk.”
“You searched my desk?” Addison tried to look insulted.
“You've borrowed my case files without asking. I don't even want to hear it from you.”
Addison laughed. “Okay. Fine. You've got me on that one. I didn't think you knew.”
“You didn't put it back exactly how you found it and I'm a bit OCD about my desk.”
“Noted. I will take that into consideration next time I steal your files off your desk for my own nefarious purposes.” Addison winked at Sully. “You couldn't find the pictures because I didn't care enough to print them out. They're in my email. I'll forward the messages to you.”
“Thanks.” Sully took a deep breath. “If Melissa is in Possum Creek then I may need your help. Maybe David's too, if you think he'd be willing.”
“David likes trouble. He gets bored when shit gets calm,” Addison said. “You think she'll start setting fires?”
“Eventually, yes. She might start with shoplifting or a structure fire, but if we can't stop her quick then someone will most likely die before it's all over.” Sully rubbed his palms together as a pair of headlights appeared at the end of the driveway. “Oh look, crime scene techs are here. It's about time.”
“Go easy on them. It's not quite midnight yet.” Addison settled back into the rocking chair and lit a third cigarette before passing the pack to Sully. “Have another cancer stick. We're going to be here until the sun comes up.”
Sully sighed as he accepted the pack and then headed down the steps to great the techs and give them instructions about what they were looking for and where to find it.
Chapter 71
Ian had been waiting all night to catch Katie alone. Unfortunately for him, Katie was never alone. She'd gone from being with Addison to being with her s
ister and Addison and then Sully and Addison.
Addison, Addison, Addison. Ian was really starting to hate Addison. What did the guy who could get any girl in the county want with Katie anyways? Was he just trying to prove a point and piss Ian off?
He'd thought he might get a chance to talk to Katie when she'd pulled into the diner earlier in the night, but Addison's Dodge had waited in the parking lot until she was back in her car and back on the road. He'd been left with no choice except to follow her to Cal's parent's house and hope he could catch her when she left.
It didn't help that Kerry's car was the only one like it in the entire county. Or that it was such an unusual shade of pastel blue. He was tempted to ask Kerry why he would choose such an impractical color for his car, but Kerry was unconscious in the trunk. At least, he'd been unconscious the last time Ian had checked on him. The screams that had come from the trunk when Cal had flipped his shit and shot at the car with a sawed-off shotgun made Ian think that maybe Kerry was awake now.
Ian couldn't afford to worry about Kerry. The Audi was overheating like an egg that had been cracked open onto a piece that had been sitting out in the sun on a 100 degree day. It was rapidly becoming apparent that one of the shotgun rounds had done something fatal to the radiator. It was only a matter of minutes before the Audi's engine blew a gasket.
Ian pushed the struggling engine up to ninety and then a hundred miles an hour. He was grateful that the car was apparently equipped with run-flat tires. The tire lights had come on when Cal had shot at the rear end of the car but so far the high end vehicle was still giving Ian a fairly smooth ride. For now, anyways. He suspected that even run-flats had their limits. He didn't know where he was going or what he would do when he got there, but he knew he couldn't just sit around Possum Creek any longer. The rest of his life was ahead of him and he wasn't about to spend his days staring at the walls of a jail cell.
A pained yowl came from the trunk of the car as Ian blasted over a pothole.
“Shut up!” Ian yelled at Kerry. The trunk went silent.
Ian turned onto the main highway going way too fast. The car spun sideways hard and he had to struggle to bring it back under control. Screw Katie, Addison, Cal and everyone else in Possum Creek, Ian thought. He didn't need any of them. They'd never liked him anyway.